Ha, that's how I got into the games industry and programming in general - I started coding little homebrew games for various competitions online when I was 14-15, then years later actually brought my PSP to a job interview with a games company and showed them what I made when I was a teenager, and I got the job.

Same for me! It was like a brick of programming in the face. If I recall correctly, I owe my gratitude to someone called "DarkAlex" on the "PSP-Hacks" website/forum for getting me interested.

My reason for starting with that scene was to play my "backed up" games but I remember screaming with joy when I got a C++ program onto the PSP which displayed some colours and bars. I could change them with the buttons and joystick.

I wonder how many of us learned how to program on the PSP. It's crazy to think how transformative this was for my life in the long run. It's also the same reason why I know Lua but went straight to C++ after that.

I wish I could bottle up the magic that was the PSP homebrew scene and give it to kids today. I'm guessing Minecraft mods are the closest modern version.

Same! The PSP was the first mobile device I used with WiFi and a web browser.